


Compliance

by Gebby



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes, Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 19:11:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20345254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gebby/pseuds/Gebby
Summary: Dimitri is called to Askr, and Alfonse can't help but be haunted by his pitiful state.Spoilers for Three Houses.





	Compliance

The flash of light faded. The newly summoned Hero scanned his surroundings;a small crowd of people was gathered around.

His eye settled on one of them. It took the combined might of Arden, Hawkeye and Tibarn to pull him off her.

~~~

“I refuse.”

Alfonse was dumbfounded. There was simply no reasoning with the man;half his words were directed at absentees, mere ramblings of his convictions to harvest Edelgard’s head and present it to them, and when Alfonse could get him to address himself, all he got was vitriol and more ranting about splaying Edelgard’s entrails about her throne room.

His clothes would have been regal, were it not for the grime coating them. His hair was long and unkempt and had a tendency to cover his eye. Paired with his eyepatch covering the other, it made it hard to read him, though his mood was never anything but hateful and antagonistic, so perhaps it didn’t matter.

The most haunting thing of all, though, was the sheer contrast of Dimitri with himself.

Alfonse had come to know the man well, and respected him greatly. He had few close friends, but Dimitri was among them. This, however, was downright chilling. Gone was the respectable air he once held, replaced with that of savagery. To call him an animal was euphemism, for animals do not engage in bloodsport and hatred;an animal’s goal is survival, and survive Dimitri had not. No, he was more a ghost than a man, and sought blood merely to atone some long-done sin. He was a monster.

“Please, Dimitri, you must reconsider. You’re a capable combatant, and the order needs all the help we can get.”

“Will you surrender Edelgard to me?”

“You know as well as I that that’s not possible.”

“Then I will not help you, if you cannot be used to garner me my revenge.”

~~~

Given time, Alfonse was able to get Dimitri to at least hold off on murdering his stepsister, with no small sum of help from Byleth. He wanted to kill her off now, while she was young, knowing what her future held. 

The summoning to Askr was, for Dimitri, merely a chance to prevent the inevitable, and not the shocking change of purpose most Heroes took it as. That said, he was a man who spoke to the dead, offering them the desecrated body of his stepsister;nothing shocked a man so far gone.

In fairness, Alfonse came to understand Dimitri’s predicament. Edelgard was, to his knowledge, responsible for the deaths of many people close to him, and had even orchestrated a plot to rid herself of both Dimitri and Claude. She was, to him, the pinnacle representative of evil, and her death would cleanse the world of impurity and right the wrongs done to him. 

But though Alfonse understood him, that didn’t mean he thought his convictions to be sane. He spoke to the dead as if they were present;his mind was not right.  
~~~

Dimitri ran into Dimitri, and he didn’t take it well.

The one was disgusted with himself, and couldn’t believe it could possibly be him.  
The other locked himself away in his room, traumatized by the rantings of disemboweling a person he held dear.

Thankfully Dimitri didn’t get a chance to tell himself about Edelgard’s betrayal. Alfonse didn’t know if he could handle two bloodthirsty lunatic princes. 

The one good thing to come out of it was that Dimitri had something else to talk about instead of Edelgard taxidermy. Now he complained about his prior noble and respectable appearance.

He got bored of this topic too quickly for Alfonse’s taste. He had enjoyed the break from detailed plans to behead his fellow student.

~~~

It hit him a few days later, why he was so concerned with Dimitri.

He knew he himself could easily walk that path. Líf was proof that a future as a bloodthirsty savage was something entirely probable for Alfonse.

~~~

“Dimitri?”

It took a few moments, but the door opened. It was the first time Alfonse had visited Dimitri’s quarters since he had initially assigned the room to him. The light was dim, but he could see his face clear enough. His eye was red;he’d been crying.

Ignoring the thoughts of him suffering alone, Alfonse pressed on. “I need to talk to you. About something serious,” he added. The door opened further in response.

Alfonse strode inside. It was surprisingly tidy, and arranged much the same as his more sane self’s, if a bit neater. Perhaps he wasn’t so monstrous, or maybe he used external cleanliness to distract him from his own sorry state. 

“What do you want, prince?” Dimitri growled as he sat at his desk.

“I know you, Dimitri. I know what you’re-“

The look in his eye cut Alfonse off. It was piercing and hateful, but for once betrayed a more human self. They sat in silence for perhaps ten minutes, before speaking as one.

”We believe death fixes that which cannot be undone, that bloodshed justifies bloodshed.”

Dimitri stood and walked to the window, gazing at the stars.

“I know what a wreck I am. I do.” He removed his eyepatch. The wound made Alfonse’s stomach drop. “But Edelgard is a traitor.”

“Not here, she isn’t. We have all manner of Heroes working among us, Dimitri. Arvis is much the same beast as she is, yet he and Sigurd find it in their best interest to maintain a professional outlook.” Alfonse inhaled. “I would like greatly to murder Surtr, Loki, all of them, in cold blood. It pains me to harbor those who have sought to harm us,” he said with a scowl. “But we must survive, and survival means working with those displeasurable curs.”

Dimitri had returned his eyepatch to its place above his empty eye socket. He seemed to be thinking, genuinely thinking the thoughts of a sane man.

Finally he arrived at a conclusion.

“I’ll comply.”

~~~  
END

I apologize if this is cheesy, out of character or rushed, I wrote this in a whole twenty minutes, don’t follow Heroes’s story and have only played to Blue Lions chapter 15.


End file.
